Arizona: Open for Business

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We’ve been reading about teachers walking out of their classrooms and abandoning their students as they don red tee shirts protesting what they claim are low wages. Bear in mind they get the summer off and a week-long mini vacations for the now neutered Winter and Spring breaks (previously Christmas and Easter). Thanksgiving is not a single day off for teachers.

Early release days and numerous teacher planning days pepperthe calendar(this district was randomly chosen) that also gives days off for “teacher collaboration.” Factor in Martin Luther King and Presidents’ Days, Labor Day, Veterans‘ Day and Memorial Day, and it’s easy to see that teachers are idle when the rest of us are expected at work.

Still, they march and loudly protest while demanding a hefty 20 percent raise. Have you ever received such a pay hike?

Some also notch up their frustrations as we’ve recently seen with married female teacher, Brittany Zamora, 27, who was engaged in a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy in her class. She faces nine counts of sexual conduct with a minor, two counts of molestation of a child, and one count of furnishing harmful material to a minor.

Within days of that obscenity, we’re treated to the report of Ryan Prassas, 36, a local high school math teacher who got drunk after a night on the town with the mother of a 14-year-old, and ordered the girl to drive — after roughing them up, He’s been arrested and charged with a felony and misdemeanors. Was he fired? Nope. He’sstill on staff,using “personal leave time.” Those administrators at Trevor Browne are so accommodating.

The rest of us would be fired if we were arrested under such circumstances, didn’t show up for work or tried demanding a 20 percent pay increase.

Passage of ballot propositions —301 in 2000increasing the state sales tax and123 in 2016a grab from the state land trust — guaranteed more money for education, which apparently is never enough. Teachers protest and school districts hold budget overrides and bond elections to “get more money into the classroom” —- eduspeak for bolstering teacher’s salaries. A major premise of passing the Arizona Lottery in 1980 was that money from ticket purchases would make its way to schools.

How is it that “underpaid” mostly leftist teachers are able to send union dues specifically earmarked to fund mostly liberal politicians? These are the people who spend more time influencing American students than their parents do. Ponder why leftist Barack Obama and self-declared Socialist Bernie Sanders cornered the youth vote.

Open Secrets/The Center for Responsive Politics shows the $ millions the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)lobbying armsgive to the most left-wing elected officials. The AFT gave not one thin dime to Republicans.

Read 10 Facts You May Not Know About Education in Arizona. It’s news you need and aren’t getting. Armed with the facts, it’s time for informed parents to march. The only roadblock is they have jobs where their presence is required. And unlike teachers, they don’t have the luxury of frequent half days, lengthy holiday vacations or the entire summer off.